Faculty

The Vanderbilt Health Care MBA Program provides students with opportunities to learn from and collaborate with researchers and innovators at the cutting edge of health care and biotechnology. Representing a combination of distinguished academic researchers, leading health care practitioners and business leaders, Owen faculty work closely with students to address this rapidly growing industry from strategic, economic, ethical and operational perspectives. These snapshots offer a glimpse into the program’s renowned faculty.

In the Classroom

Lawrence Van Horn is a leading expert on health care management and economics. His research on health care organizations, managerial incentives in nonprofit hospitals and the conduct of managed care firms has appeared in such publications as the Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Law and Economics and Harvard Business Review. He has consulted with government and health care organizations and has presented at numerous seminars and conferences sponsored by industry, government and academic institutions.

Rangaraj "Ranga" Ramanujam is a leading researcher and consultant on the organizational causes and consequences of errors in high-risk work settings. His research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Medical Care, Journal of Patient Safety,Journal of Applied Psychology, and other journals.

Michael Lapré is an internationally known expert on organizational learning curves. He is primarily interested in empirical research on improving organizational performance. Michael has been awarded the Shingo Research Prize, the Stan Hardy Award, Wickham Skinner Awards for Best Paper presented at the annual conference of the Production and Operations Management Society, and the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research at Owen.

Michael Burcham has over 20 years of extensive experience in health care innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup venture coaching. He is a highly successful three-time entrepreneur–most recently President of ParadigmHealth, a $300-million disease management firm. In addition to his post at Vanderbilt, Michael serves as President of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

Steve Hoeffler is an expert in consumer products marketing, brand management and consumer behavior, including the marketing of "really new" (novel) products and the development of consumer preferences. He has also served a variety of marketing roles for NCR/AT&T and has consulted for Procter and Gamble, IBM and Fujitsu.

Affiliated Faculty

Wayne Joseph Riley is Adjunct Professor of Healthcare Management, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University and Professor of Internal Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Senior Advisor, Association of Academic Health Centers and the former 10th President & Chief Executive Officer of Meharry Medical College which he led with distinction from January 2007 until July 2013. Previously, he served as a corporate officer and member of the senior management team as the Vice-President and Vice Dean for Health Affairs and Governmental Relations and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the renowned Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, Texas. He joined the prestigious faculty there after completing residency training in Baylor's highly regarded internal medicine residency training program.

Dr. Riley, a general internist well versed in healthcare management and policy is a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences, a Master of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Society of Medical Administrators (SOMA) an organization composed of the nation's top 50 physician executives. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the National Board of Medical Examiners. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University; a Master of Public Health in Health Systems Management from Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine; an M.D. from the Morehouse School of Medicine and an MBA from Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. He also has been awarded honorary degrees from the State University of New York, Brooklyn Downstate Medical Center and Tuskegee University. He is licensed to practice medicine in states of Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana.

Dr. Riley is also an independent director of two publically traded companies: HCA Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Hospital Corporation of America the nation's largest operator of hospitals and healthcare facilities where he serves on the Patient Safety and Quality, Audit & Compliance and Nominating and Governance Committees and Cambridge, Massachusetts based Vertex Pharmaceuticals where he serves on the Corporate Governance and Nominating and Science & Technology committees. He previously served as a Director of Pinnacle Financial Partners, the second largest Tennessee bank holding company, where he served on the Audit and Compliance, Nominating and Corporate Governance and Community Affairs committees and the Nashville Branch Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Nashville Healthcare Council.

Dr. Riley's wife, Charlene, is also a physician and they are the proud parents of two daughters. In his rare spare time, Dr. Riley, a jazz aficionado also enjoys reading, golf and spectator sports, particularly the legendary Boston Celtics and his hometown New Orleans Saints.

John Doulis, M.B, B.S

Dr. Doulis is former Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief Operations Officer of the Informatics Center at Vanderbilt University. In this role, he was the single point of focus for the Informatics Center’s efforts to provide the most effective informatics and information technology infrastructure to meet the needs of the diverse operating units that make up VUMC. The objective of the position was to be best of class in support of medical center operations through informatics and information technology infrastructure.

As Chief Information Officer of MedCare, Dr. Doulis is responsible for the development of the information technology investment strategy for the fund and increase the value of the portfolio companies utilizing 20 years of experience as a physician executive, scientist, and architect and manager of healthcare information systems. Dr. Doulis received his M.D. from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and has an extensive publication and presentation record.

HISA: Health Informatics Society of Australia (Victoria) executive committee in 1996, 1997 and 2000, 2001.HISA is a member of the Asia Pacific Association Medical Informatics (APAMI), the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and the health informatics group of the Australian Computer Society (ACS).

Jim Cooper was elected as youngest congressman in America—Budget, Armed Services, Energy & Commerce, Financial Services, and Small Business Committees. He authored the chief rival to Clinton Health Care. Jim recently won the 2006 Judge Edward R. Finch Law Day Speech Award, top award in an annual competition sponsored by the American Bar Association.

For a complete listing of our faculty who are engaged in the Health Care program and/or Health Care research, visit our Health Care Academic Area.